by Byers, Sam
From here, naturally, he pointed to his well-documented background in the corporate sphere as well as his less-documented background in the hippie sphere and suggested that if they found anyone with a more perfect balance of the particular elements that this role would require someone to juggle they should let him know. They offered him the job on the spot. He sold it to Angelica as a way of genuinely making a difference, and to her credit she’d given him the benefit of the doubt. Sebastian, on the other hand, had not only failed to stop demonstrating but, probably out of sheer spite, had stepped up his efforts, meaning that the façade of friendship they maintained for Angelica’s benefit was now thinner than ever. Nonetheless, every weekend Daniel had to smile his way through dinner, the phrase fuck the hippies sticking rather uncomfortably in his throat.
The evenings were all much of a muchness, and Daniel found them tolerable only in that they spared him having to spend another evening bonding with Angelica. Angelica always cooked – something lumpy and hearty and altogether heinous – and Sebastian and Plum always brought wine – something dry and unusual with impeccable political credentials.
Tonight was, naturally, no different. They arrived late enough to demonstrate their casual disregard for bourgeois punctuality yet not so late as to relinquish the right to get angry if anyone was ever overly behind schedule for one of their own gatherings. Plum was wearing a dress she’d fashioned herself from a collection of period cushion covers sourced, as she explained, from an amazing little charity shop they’d found while holidaying in Brighton. Sebastian was wearing brown boots with heels that were borderline Cuban, stonewashed jeans and a jacket with a Nehru collar. His long hair was tied back in a way that made it look like his smile was caused by tension across his scalp and face.
‘Ange,’ said Sebastian, kissing Angelica on the lips (cheek-kissing was repressed, everyone seemed to agree, and reserved only for uncomfortable or false situations). ‘Great to see you. God, you look fabulous. Doesn’t she look fabulous, Daniel?’
‘Of course,’ said Daniel as Plum kissed him on the cheek. ‘As do you, Plum.’
‘Barium irrigation,’ she said, reaching over to embrace Angelica while Sebastian waved awkwardly at Daniel across the hugging women. ‘I feel like superwoman.’
‘It’s amazing how much crap you can hold in your colon,’ said Angelica.
They seated themselves at the dining table, where Angelica had lit candles. The stereo was playing something Brazilian. Angelica went off to gather the meal.
‘Can I do anything, hon?’ called Daniel.
‘No,’ she called back, much to his disappointment. ‘Just stay and entertain, darling.’
Sebastian smiled. ‘You don’t mind me telling Ange how fabulous she looks, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ said Daniel. ‘How are you, anyway?’
‘Wonderful,’ said Plum.
‘Lots happening,’ said Sebastian.
‘That’s great,’ said Daniel.
‘And how about you?’ said Sebastian, flashing his teeth. ‘How’s life in the lab?’
‘I don’t work in the labs,’ Daniel replied, for perhaps the hundredth time.
‘Oh yes, I always forget. You don’t research, you just proselytise the research.’
‘Oh leave him alone, Seb,’ said Plum.
‘I’m just ribbing him a bit. You don’t mind, do you, Dan?’
Daniel did mind, and also disliked having his name abbreviated, but commented on neither transgression, since to do so would ruin the atmosphere. Angelica set great store by atmosphere, and woe betide anyone who was caught jeopardising it.
‘Well I think proselytising’s a bit strong,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s more a sort of educational capacity, really.’
‘You’re the minister of propaganda then,’ said Sebastian.
‘Not really, no.’
Like many in his circle, Sebastian determinedly equated anything he didn’t like with fascism.
‘You’ve seen the headlines, I assume?’ said Sebastian. ‘God, what am I saying? You probably wrote the headlines.’
‘Which headlines are we talking about?’
‘You know, the ones about The Centre.’
‘Oh, those,’ said Daniel. ‘Yes, we’re not sure where those are coming from, actually.’
‘I assume you’re about to tell me they’re untrue.’
‘Well I wasn’t actually, but since you mention it, yes, they’re totally false.’
‘Spoken like a true believer.’
‘Believing’s got nothing to do with it. The Centre is researching a sustainable crop source. Whatever’s going on with the cows is completely unrelated.’
‘But what if they’ve been eating modified crops? What if this is a glimpse of us in the future?’
‘If you think cows eat crops then you’re incredibly naïve. More to the point, if it’s true that this is a virus that’s capable of jumping the species barrier, which everyone seems to think it is, then that would rule out the food source as the infecting agent.’
‘Not really,’ smiled Sebastian, who hated being called naïve to the exact same degree as he loved labelling others as such. ‘It could be picked up in the food source, then passed to humans when they eat infected meat.’
‘Yes, but that only brings us back to the question of the food source. Don’t you remember Mad Cow? Cows eat mushed-up cows for breakfast, lunch and dinner.’
‘You know,’ said Sebastian, his lip curling. ‘You should work in PR.’
‘And you should spend your life picketing stuff you don’t understand,’ snapped Daniel. ‘Saw you out there the other day. You looked dreadfully cold.’
‘Warm in your office, was it?’
‘Yes thanks.’
‘Long way from that car park now, aren’t you?’
At this, Daniel simply laughed, even if it was only to mask his grimace.
‘We’re not onto this already, are we?’ said Angelica, carrying through the lentil thing and rolling her eyes. ‘I mean for God’s sake, boys, let it go.’
Sebastian spread his hands in a smug, blameless way. Daniel did the same in an equally smug, though slightly less blameless way.
The conversation moved on. Plum and Sebastian talked about Brighton. They always talked about places as if the people to whom they were speaking could never possibly have been there. Daniel had been to Brighton, but didn’t say anything. He’d already flirted with a spell in the doghouse during his exchange with Sebastian. He was usually, he thought, better at managing these occasions. Perhaps it was Katherine’s call, the stirring up of all those unpleasant memories and sensations. Perhaps it was the flu. Either way, he felt decidedly sharp-edged. Katherine would have said this was his true self. As far as she was concerned, conviviality was always a lie. You could fake being nice, she would say, but being a cunt came from the heart.
When Daniel tuned back into the conversation it had turned to politics and failures of government. It never ceased to amaze Daniel that, years after Blair’s departure, his shortcomings remained a fixture of dinner-party conversation. If that wasn’t a legacy, Daniel didn’t know what was.
‘I mean,’ said Sebastian, ‘just look at Afhanistan.’
‘Oh I know,’ said Angelica. ‘Afyanistan is a horror. To think that man actually took us there.’
It was, Daniel noticed, an unspoken agreement within the group that the names of foreign countries had to be pronounced with a slightly different inflection than was usual, delivered with such confidence that it implied ignorance on the part of anyone oafish and colonialist enough to say Afghanistan.
‘You know,’ said Sebastian, leaning forward in the manner that always presaged his saying something intense. ‘The Native Americans have this really fascinating approach to the whole concept of leadership.’
‘Oh I love their outlook on things,’ said Angelica. ‘Like their system of non-ownership and their whole attitude to the land? It’s so awful that we just crush these cultures
without learning from them first.’
‘It’s true,’ said Daniel. ‘We should learn then crush.’
‘Oh you know what I mean. Don’t be pedantic.’
‘What they say,’ said Sebastian, quickly heading off any possible sidetracking, ‘is OK, you can be our leader, you can be our chief or whatever, but only until you start behaving like our leader. You see?’
‘Mmmm,’ said Plum. ‘God, that’s so beautiful.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Angelica.
‘Because what they’re saying,’ said Sebastian, ‘is that power corrupts, right? It’s like the … the inevitability of fascism.’ He clapped his hands once, quickly, clearly pleased with the phrase. ‘And the second they spot that you’re going over to the dark side …’ He drew a finger across his neck. ‘You’re finished.’
‘So who makes that decision?’ said Daniel. ‘I mean, is there a sort of matrix of warning signs or something? What are the key indicators? Buying a Porsche?’
‘I think that’s a very materialist way of looking at what is essentially a spiritual matter.’
‘Well I think the whole thing’s a very spiritual way of looking at what is essentially a practical matter. Don’t you want your leaders to behave like leaders? Don’t you want them to take responsibility?’
‘Mmhmm,’ nodded Sebastian. ‘But there’s the issue of the common good.’
‘Who decides that?’
‘Daniel’s a bit grumpy today,’ said Angelica, rubbing his back and pouting. ‘He’s had an ickle bit of fwoo.’
‘Oh fuck off.’
‘You’d be right out of the Native American leadership circle with that sort of behaviour,’ said Plum, winking at Daniel. She had a way of somehow joining in with the general conversational trend while at the same time suggesting a degree of sympathy with the underdog, meaning no one could ever justifiably get angry with her, meaning in turn that Daniel quickly became angry with her but had no idea how to express it without looking like an arsehole.
‘Illness is such a blessing,’ said Sebastian, helping himself to some more of the lentil thing. ‘It’s so cleansing.’
‘I’m full of snot. I don’t feel cleansed.’
‘Gwumpy wumpy,’ said Angelica, reaching down to pick up the cat, groaning a little as she heaved its formless mass onto her lap. ‘He’s gwumpy, isn’t he? Yes he is. Yes he is.’
‘I remember when I had dysentery in Sri Lanka,’ said Plum. ‘God, it was like being a new person at the end of it.’
Sebastian put his arm round her and kissed her temple. ‘You were so beautiful going through that,’ he said.
‘Gwumpy man. Gwumpy wumpy daddy man. Yes he is. Yes he is.’
‘Do you have to talk to the cat about me in that way? I mean really? Is it really necessary?’
‘Animals know our true selves,’ said Sebastian. ‘If you’re comfortable with your true self you have nothing to fear from the cat, regardless of what Angelica says to it.’
‘I’m not that concerned about the cat’s opinion, actually, it’s more the …’
‘I sometimes feel like he looks right through me,’ said Angelica, looking at Daniel but ostensibly referring to the cat. ‘Like he can just walk into the room and know, you know? Like the other day when I was feeling really negative, you remember, honey, over that whole thing with the phone and the … anyway, that’s irrelevant, I don’t want to go back to that space again, but he just walked into the room, and looked at me, and I just felt he understood, and he came and sat with me, and it was so calming, and I thought, all of this is happening without language, without words.’
‘It’s true,’ said Daniel. ‘He knows the pain of being mischarged on your quarterly BT bill.’
‘It’s not that literal,’ said Sebastian.
‘I know. I was sort of joking.’
Sebastian nodded as if this confirmed something very important to him. It was one of the things that Daniel had never quite understood about Sebastian and Plum and their ilk. For people who believed in freedom and expression and peace and love, who railed daily against the tyranny of the squares, they were oddly humourless, as if free expression and boundless emotional exploration were such a serious business that they left no room for actual fun.
‘Who wants more?’ said Angelica, pouring the cat onto the floor as she stood up to attend to the food. ‘Honestly, there’s loads.’
‘I couldn’t,’ said Plum. ‘Really.’
‘Not for me,’ said Daniel. ‘Lovely as it was. I’m stuffed.’
‘Looks like it’s just you and me, Seb. Go on, have another spoonful.’
‘Absolutely don’t mind if I do,’ said Sebastian, passing his plate over. ‘You must give me the recipe.’
‘I’m so blessed to have a man who cooks,’ said Plum.
‘Oh, you are,’ said Angelica. ‘Daniel’s a bloody disaster area in the kitchen.’
‘How can you eat something if you don’t have a relationship with it?’ said Sebastian, dry-swallowing another wad of brownish paste.
‘Mmmm,’ said Angelica.
Daniel said nothing. The difficulty of these little soirées with Sebastian and Plum was that they had a tendency to cast Daniel as the negative one, the one who blew the vibe all too easily. This meant that he not only had to tolerate them but also had to out-positive them, which of course was difficult when he felt he was about to gag.
He decided to quarantine himself quickly, before all the sewage inside him escaped.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not well. I might need to lie down.’
‘Really, honey?’ said Angelica. ‘Are you really feeling rotten and miserable?’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘Sorry.’
‘Maybe we should go,’ said Plum.
‘No, no,’ protested Daniel, noting that Sebastian had remained silent through this exchange. ‘Don’t mind me. You stay and have a good time. I might even come back down. I just need a bit of a rest, that’s all.’
‘Feel better soon,’ advised Plum.
As he climbed the stairs, already regretting what must have seemed a sudden and rather pathetic exit, he could hear Sebastian taking up the theme.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘the Bhutanese believe that how someone handles illness says a lot about how they handle life …’
He lay down on the bed, fully clothed, and closed his eyes. The lentils were repeating. He felt weighed down, awkwardly anchored to the world around him. His brain was somehow racing and limping at the same time.
He was, he thought, slightly self-indulgently but with a certain amount of satisfaction, troubled. He recognised this because it wasn’t a new phenomenon. Just as spots of blood will point to guilt or illness (the scarlet smear on the handkerchief; the pink streamers of sinister matter in the urine), so Daniel’s thoughts were increasingly spattered with ugly spots of troubling disturbance. Childhood transgressions bubbled to the surface. Old crimes and embarrassing social stumbles pricked at him from the darker recesses of his memory. At perfectly ordinary moments he found his ears burning, his cheeks flushed, his stomach twisting down towards his bowels at the memory of mistakes gone by. Did he think he was perfect? Did he wish he was perfect?
Recently, as if he had unconsciously exhausted his archive of slight yet resilient pains, the memories had begun to be accompanied by sudden, pressing fears. What if Angelica became ill? What if he became ill? What if he lost his job? Perhaps Angelica didn’t love him. Perhaps she had met someone else. How would he be able to tell? How could he tell if he loved her? Like the memories, these fears loomed seemingly from nowhere, from the depths or the peripheral distance, like fish nipping at breadcrumbs on the surface of their calm pool. He wondered if it was because, as he had thought before, he was evaporating as he aged. Perhaps as all the fluids of his self drifted skywards, the things he’d long since drowned returned to the surface. He pictured those selfsame fish – beached, gills gaping, scales already losing their luminescence in the suffocating air. Wa
s this what he was? Was this what everyone was, in the end, a collection of buried, ignored, suppressed detritus that remained stubbornly on the tideline after everything else had receded?
Thinking about it now, in bed, with his hand over his eyes and a childish tremble in his upper lip, he realised that this was why Katherine’s call had unnerved him so thoroughly. Here, at the sight of a single name scrolling across a screen, was the feeling of everything he’d buried being exhumed without dignity. Yes, he had let Nathan down towards the end, of course he had, they all had. Yes, he had cut Katherine off in a manner unbefitting their five years together, giving her the sense, as she had said in her last letter to him just under a year ago, that none of it had mattered, that it had all been a mistake. And yes, most of all, he had lied to Katherine, had cheated on her in no uncertain terms. This was the crux of it. This was what troubled him, and this, if he was honest, was the main contributing factor in his unease around Angelica: the fact that he had, although he had never discussed it, walked out of the bar the night he’d met her, after all those epic, idealistic conversations, feeling what he knew to be the first stirrings of something he’d long thought lost to him, and gone home, to Katherine, with whom he had not yet parted, and told her, just as he had this very evening told Angelica in an uncomfortably similar way, that he had spoken to ‘no one’ the whole evening. And yes, he had called Angelica when Katherine was at work the next day, and yes, he had in fact fucked Angelica some weeks later, still without having ended things with Katherine, and when Katherine had asked if there was anyone else, that night, when it had all come to an end, he’d told her, with a straight face, that he would never do that to anyone, that he didn’t believe in it, and yes, that had been when Katherine had told him, as if she knew (did she know?) never to say never, and had indeed uttered the words that still haunted him now, as he lied and pretended and hid his self-disgust behind disgust at the shortcomings of others: the higher the horse, the harder the fall.
The café in which Nathan sat was, to the naked eye, perfectly square. Its lino floor was a black-and-white check, as were, confusingly, the tiled lower halves of its otherwise off-white walls. The tables were square and topped with white Formica, giving a stiflingly uniform appearance against which streaks of ketchup and eggy breakfast remnants stood in garish relief. The chairs were cheap and flimsy and bowed when taking a larger person such as Nathan’s full weight. They were also small and made a large person feel larger, a feeling at dissonant odds with the fact that they were low and so made a person of any size feel smaller due to the resulting height of the table. Some tables were placed side by side in order to seat four. One assumed that a party of five or more would need to make their own arrangements. One table had only salt while another had only pepper. The ketchup was dispensed from a fake plastic tomato almost four times the size of an actual tomato. The salt and pepper pots were miniature people with either black or white hats depending on their contents whose blank expressions seemed eerily incongruous given the fact they were stood next to a giant and no doubt slightly threatening tomato. The café was of the cutlery-will-be-dispensed-along-with-food-and-not-before school of hospitality. There were no napkins as these were offered as a scabbard for the cutlery. Nathan’s black Nescafé had been served in a black mug. When he leaned over the mug it had the appearance of a dark vacuum into which he might fall or from which something unspeakable might emanate. At least one person in the café was staring at him. The winter sun was level with the roofs of the opposite buildings, allowing its light to stream uninterrupted through the glass door and broad window of the café, backlighting the three other patrons as they sat in relation to Nathan and causing him to squint and then blink rapidly whenever he looked up from the black hole of his coffee, leading in turn to the sensation that reality was a gauzy screen in which some nameless creature had chewed ragged holes.